Saving Prince Charming

They were cold, and their warmth was fading.

Now, Logic and Anxiety had always been close. This may seem a bit counter-intuitive, since Anxiety was the one responsible for weaving the fantastical webs of lies and fear, the pictures made of over-thinking and poison, and since Logic was the one responsible for tearing them down with the harshness of reason, but...

But they were both somewhat shunned by the others, so they had been friends for something like a very long time.

Usually, it was subconscious. At least, with Logic. If he were to bring up the way he was often ignored and pushed to the side with Morality, he would laugh. Proclaim Logic to be one of his closest friends. Prince would simply scoff, declare the idea ridiculous.

Anxiety understood, though. He knew what it was like to not be taken seriously, what it was like when a room fell silent after walking through the door. He knew what it was to be alone in a room filled with your supposed friends.

Because with Anxiety, it wasn't subconscious, it was purposeful. If he were to ever be confronted on the subject, Dad would sigh, look guiltily at the floor for a minute, but immediately go back to his usual bouncing self. Prince would simply agree. Of course he ignored Anxiety, the darkness, the pessimism, he was the Prince, after all. He was the light. He was the hope.

Anxiety thought that Logic probably had it worse than he did. At least his mistreatment was acknowledged, a known part of life in the mind of Thomas Sanders. But Logic, he had to endure it while the others called him 'friend', he had to grin and he had to make petty and pretty conversation when he was with the others. At least Anxiety didn't have to pretend.

...They were cold. Or, at least, colder. This was the conclusion the two had reached during a late night chat in Logic's neat and organized room, wrapped in unicorn onesies and question and hurt. They didn't hold the same warmth, the same brightness and positivity as the other two. They didn't think with their hearts, so they weren't as welcomed. Logic could understand that, or he had said he could, in that midnight bubble of safety and dark. Not scary dark, but a blanketing one. A comforting one.

Anxiety knew, however, that Logic didn't really understand. Didn't understand why he was brushed off, made a fool of, especially when his specialty was thinking rationally. Logically.

But he also knew that Logic needed a reason, lest he go mad, lest he break his shield before the others, so he agreed. He nodded and he gave a lipless grin and he remarked on how illogical it all was. And they laughed.

They were okay. They were.

They were fine. [(and here's where Anxiety knew more than Logic, that fine meant anything but, it meant they were drowning)]

They were fine.

*

All of this was the reason that Anxiety sought out Logic first when he had returned from Thomas' house. That, and because Logic was the one that sent him, but that just wasn't as important.

"Logic?" He called, easing his footsteps on the creaking floorboards as to not wake anyone.

Logic appeared immediately, rising up like a gunshot, shaking and with eyes wider than Anxiety's ever seen on him.

"Logic? What's wrong?" He asked, but Logic was already speaking, their words bleeding together.

"It's Dad, he —oh my goodness, I don't— what do we do?"

"Okay Logic, calm down, what's happened?" and wasn't this rich, a role reversal, as if Logic hadn't said these words to him hundreds upon hundreds of times, and honestly, seeing him like this was making his own shadow creep up his throat. He crushed it with desperation.

"It's, it's Dad, he just," a deep breath, visibly trying to straighten himself. He was the level headed one, damn it. "he collapsed. He says he's been feeling light-headed for days, now, and now he won't wake up."

Oh. Oh no.

Those symptoms...

"Shut up. I don't want to have to deal with you today."

"Yeah, whatever Princey. Like you can get rid of me that easy."

"Yes, well..." a thud sounded throughout their head, a noise made from the falling body of the Prince.

"Prince? Prince?"

He was comatose.

Oh God. The first signs of The Sickness.

"Oh... oh, um..."

"What do we do?" Logic repeated, his eyes almost begging.

"I... I don't know. I don't know."

And if he said this was the first time he'd seen Logic cry, he would be lying. But if he said this was the first time he'd ever seen the trait look so helplessly lost, so broken...

Well.

That wouldn't be too far off.

*

And they were both drawn to the others, of course. How could they not be? They were like suns, pulling them into their orbit. They were but tiny planets in their system.

Logic was more specifically attracted to Morality. In a completely platonic manner, of course. He was everything that he secretly wanted to be: kind, and considerate, and compellingly illogical. He was randomly predictable, and quietly deafening. A beautiful contradiction.

Anxiety, though he would never admit it aloud (he had, actually, but the laws of reality didn't apply after nightfall in a blanket-fort of his and Logic's creation) was undeniably... jealous? Envious? Enticed. Enticed by the Prince. He was everything Anxiety wished for in the dark while the tears dripped down his face; he was confident, and beautiful, and wanted and god, Anxiety wished. He wished so much.

And they were both so... so happy. So brilliant. They were awe-struck, the both of them.

But they were who they were, and they weren't particularly accepted, wanted. So they acted like they weren't locked in by their glorious gravity, that their lives didn't revolve around the warmth they provided them.

It hurt.

But that was life.

[But they were fading.]